A. Homes - The End of Alice

“Didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean it at all. It was an accident, all an accident. I loved her very much.”

“Have you loved anyone else?”

“Only you.”

She nods gravely. The game is over. Nobody has won. In the distance a cowbell rings, not naturally but as if it’s being struck, banged on purpose.

“My dinner,” she says.

I check my watch, 7 P.M., they’re calling her home.

I don’t want to leave. I want to stay, to busy myself in this place until she returns, and then I never want her to go again. I can’t be without her.

“You can stay,” she says. “I’ll be back later.”

“I must go.” If I don’t leave now, I will stay forever. I will spread myself out on the floor playing games forever and ever, making up imaginary and arbitrary rules as I go along.

The bell is banged again. “Dressie’s bell,” she says.

“Gram’s cow?”

She nods. “I have to go. But before I leave, I have a favor to ask.” She looks at me and waits.

“Yes?”

“Let me see it again.” I know what she is referring to and instantly blush.

“Oh, don’t be a dolt. Show me. I just need to see.”

I have no desire to flash her my manhood, am in fact embarrassed by it — suddenly it is far too ungainly and grotesque a thing, huge, hanging dark and long. Afraid of frightening her, instead I slip one of my hands into my waistband and, with the other, unzip my fly and poke my index finger out through the fabric door, wiggling the digit. Her eyes fix on my pseudopart with such intensity that regardless of the fact that it is only my finger I’m flashing, the juice in my veins pools in my crotch, pushing the finger up a bit, giving it altogether a different pulse. She giggles and bends closer, examining my indexer. “You bite your nails,” she says, and then runs off, out of the cabin and up to the big house.

I return home and lie in bed lingering over the sensation of the afternoon and the repeating flavor of tea and old cookies. I belch and I’m in heaven.

During the night there is a tap-tapping at the door. Hearing it, I am sure they’ve finally come for me. I go to them, ready to turn myself in. Open the door, no one is there, it is night, only night, black all around me. I return to bed. The window is open. She is there between the sheets, pulling my blanket to her chin. “Couldn’t sleep,” she says. “Strange dreams, like nightmares, only my eyes were open.”

A stranger is shaking me. “Hey, hey, are you all right?” I try to raise my arms, to brush him away, but I am all tied up. I’m in chains. Prison. Guards.

The sergeant is there, trying to rouse me. “You must have fallen asleep. You must have dropped off.”

“What time is it?” I ask.

“Time.”

The sergeant steps aside, the members of the committee are looking out over the table at me. “Would you like something to drink?” the black woman asks.

“Another cup of tea would be lovely.”

The black woman nods and in a minute the sergeant is holding a cup of tea. How can I drink all tied up? The sergeant brings the cup to my lips. I sip. Hot tea. “Heaven,” I say. “Thank you.”

“Can we continue?” the black woman asks.

“Pardon, I beg your pardon.”

“We were talking about New Hampshire. New Hampshire and Alice Somerfield,” the black woman says.

The man adds, “The family has written a letter, asking that you not be released. Are you aware of the letter?”

“No.” I had no idea they’d written. “Are they still in Scarsdale?”

No one responds.

The sergeant gives me another sip of tea.

“It is June,” the black woman says. “You have rented the cabin, you meet Alice Somerfield at the lake.”

Close the window, lock the door, all too easily she fits herself around me.

Awake before dawn, it is my plan to wake her and send her on her way. I shake the bed a bit. She sleeps soundly. Across her lips is a faint grin.

“This may seem odd,” I say aloud, “but I don’t know your name.”

The sweet breeze of her breath sweeps my chest, teasing the hairs like wind through trees.

“Ruby Diamond Pearl,” she says groggily. “The jewels of my mother’s marriages.” She pauses. “But Gram calls me Alice.” And then she is back in her di’eam.

“Won’t you be missed at breakfast?”

Eyes still closed, she mumbles, “I never eat so early in the day.”

We are in bed. I am attempting to make idle conversation.

“Where do you usually live?”

“In Scarsdale now, Mum’s just married a Jew. I hate him. He wants to send me away to school.”

“Tell me more about your family.”

“I’m trying to sleep.”

“We could go swimming.”

“No one swims anymore. Uncle George drowned in the lake when he was almost twelve — exactly my age now — so did Cousin Douglas and his friend Lizbeth. Everyone hates water.”

“Do you?”

She doesn’t answer.

“Tell me about your accent. It’s vaguely…”

“Don’t bother,” she says, swinging her legs out from under cover, getting up. “It’s an affectation.”

Her nightgown, as with much of her wardrobe, is poorly fitting, too small. It’s torn at the neck to keep her from choking and again at the cuffs — the sleeves are so short they almost begin at the elbow.

“I’ve grown two inches this year,” she says, noticing my concern. “Headed for the world record.”

I want to do with her as one would a proper lover, fuck her ferociously, working up an appetite for a beast’s breakfast and then returning to bed, to do it again, finally rousing at two or three, to snack, feeding each other in bed like baby birds still in the nest, fucking again, then sleeping until supper with the comfort of newfound familiarity.

I want to feel the suddenness of being a couple.

She knows nothing of it. Instead she is out the door, the screen slamming behind her. “Thanks, that was fun,” she screams as she runs up the hill, in her flowered nightgown, in broad daylight.

I sit by the door panicked, queasy, convinced I will never see her again — someone will see to that.

I wait. I wait, thinking that if I leave the house, she will come back, find me gone, and not return.

I wait for hours and then find myself preparing to go out, now equally sure that only if I’m gone will she return.

A ride in the car. It’s good to get out of the house. Gifts. I will buy her gifts. I find myself in an antique store, rounding up a treasonist’s trousseau, an ancient white nightgown — yellow butterflies finely embroidered around the collar — and a diamond ring. I have no idea what brings this on, but it seems unavoidable. I am compelled to make my intentions clear.

Returning to the house, there is still no sign of her. Unable to stand it any longer, I set off, charging up the hill toward the big house, not knowing what I’ll do.

Hidden in the woods, leaning back against a tree, one knee bent, is a woman smoking a dark cigarette. In her free hand she holds a drink, all of it quite posed as if she’s standing for a photograph. I am almost literally upon her before she has any sense of me.

“You frightened me,” she says, completely cool, dropping her cigarette in the leaves, crushing it with the toe of her espadrille.

“Pardon,” I say, attempting to disguise my own surprise at coming upon the mater of my babe.

She is tall, nearly six feet, built like a boy, flat as a board, thin as a reed.

“The renter?” she asks, lighting a fresh cigarette.

I nod.

She exhales. “Gram doesn’t like smoke in the house. It’s my nasty habit.”

“I suppose,” I say. “But a delicious one.” She offers me a cigarette. I decline, pulling out my own pack. She smiles.